March 23, 2016

A WTAE personality - I can't say Journalist, or Announcer - named Wendy Bell made a Facebook post providing her understanding of both the recent Wilkinsburg shooting and of the current state of America. Her story tells us more about herself than about anybody else.

An insight into Wendy Bell isn't really that interesting, except that it provides a view into the perspective of the Legions of Wendy Bell's: educated, professional, successful people who's racism is so well coded that even they may not see it.

Wendy Bell doesn't think she's racist. She thinks she's a very nice person. She is, however, realistic and Wendy Bell and her Legions are: anti-criminal.

There's an excellent book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander and I recommend it to you. It explains the Legions of Wendy Bell, and the situation we have today.

The 1980's War on Drugs criminalized drug use, and went further to militarize the police response to drugs. It further incentivized police and local governments to arrest and convict people for drugs. Police budgets are now dependent on the War on Drugs, and we're getting the police behavior we're incentivizing.

A funny thing: the people administering the War on Drugs found it much easier, and more profitable, to exercise their discretion and conduct their War with an emphasis on the black community.

So here's what's so effective: when you lock up a lot of black people, they're not only punished by their sentence - they're tagged as criminals and moved into an under-caste that's largely racially defined. They may serve 6 months or ten years, but their "criminal" label haunts their entire life. They won't get a decent job, they can't vote, own a firearm, or be on a jury. They are relegated to the status of a lower caste, and they'll never get out of it.

And so people like Wendy Bell don't have to judge racially - they can just rant about criminals, and they're not being racist, they're being realistic. Damn criminals. We don't stop to think about our system that makes them criminals, and the incentives and motivations behind that.

But most people are decent people, and they'd catch on to a system that moves all the black people into a lower caste. We've ingeniously been provided with Exceptional Black People that make the White Folks comfortable. Barack Obama, Colin Power, Ben Carson - remarkable brilliant people that tell us we're post-racial. Just like that smiling, rhythmic, dancing, hard-working child in the restaurant that Wendy Bell gave the Manager such good feedback on - you've got a good one, there!

And so we lock them up, and remove them from the economy, and treat them like a lower caste or even a different type of people. But it's because they're criminals, don't you see; it's not that their black. This is the new Jim Crow. First it was Slavery, then it was Segregation, and now it's Mass Incarceration.

Against that backdrop, this one Wendy Bell is insignificant. But the Legion of Wendy Bells needs to be enlighted, educated, corrected, confronted. Especially as the media rep for a company that presents itself as an EEO employer.

the TL-DR of W.Bell's post: My Momma told me, If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. But: I've been dragging around this feeling like a cold I can't shake that rattles in my chest each time I breathe and makes my temples throb. I don't want to hurt anymore. I'm tired of hurting. Key points: I come from a good family and traditional values. I am in pain. This is about me.

You needn't be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers. I will tell you they live within 5 miles of Franklin Avenue and Ardmore Blvd. They are young black men. They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs. These boys have been in the system before. They've been arrested. They've made the circuit. Key points: The shooters are the black people our parents warned us about: multiple siblings, multiple fathers. They've hardened criminals.

But there is HOPE. A young, African American teen hustling like nobody's business at a restaurant. This child stacked heavy glass glasses 10 high and carried three teetering towers of them in one hand with plates piled high in the other. Got down on his hands and knees to pick up the scraps that had fallen to the floor. And he did all this with a rhythm and a step that gushed positivity. He moved like a dancer with a satisfied smile on his face. I couldn't take my eyes off him. He's going to Make It. But there is HOPE. I found a young black child who cleans up my scraps, with a rhythm and a step, and a happy smile.

I asked to see the manager. I told him that that young man was the best thing his restaurant had going. The manager beamed and agreed that his young employee was special. I saw the manager put his arm around that child's shoulder and pat him on the back in congratulation. It will be some time before I forget the smile that beamed across that young worker's face -- or the look in his eyes as we caught each other's gaze. I wonder how long it had been since someone told him he was special. So I went and told his boss, That's a good one. I did a good thing.

There's someone in your life today who could really use that. A hand up. A warm word. We can't change what's already happened, but we can be a part of what's on the way. Speak up. Dare to Care. And then -- just maybe THEN -- I'll start feeling again like there's something nice to say. Let's focus on the good ones, and then maybe I'll feel good again.